As we head toward the Oscars and therefore the end of awards season, it’s time to take a better look at some of the films we’re anticipating from 2012. We have for you today an eclectic mix of photos from some of the entertainments we’re most looking forward to, from Gary Ross‘ deadly serious YA adaptation The Hunger Games to Judd Apatow‘s almost-middle-age comedy This is Forty and everything in between. Check out photos for those films plus The Gangster Squad, Men in Black III, and Frankenweenie after the jump.

After quite a few set pictures showed up from the LA shoot of Ruben Fleischer‘s Gangster Squad, we’ve now got the first official promo photo for the film, showing Josh Brolin as an LA cop staring down Sean Penn as famed LA gangster Mickey Cohen. There’s not a lot to the pic — it’s two actors in era-appropriate suits with a lot of color correction — but their specific poses and positioning does tell us something about the characters, and the image looks good in general. See a full version below. Read More »

It feels like James Franco is attached to pretty much everything these days, but now there’s one less Franco project we have to look forward to. According to JustJared.com, the star has pulled out of The Iceman, a biopic of Mafia hitman Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski. Franco was lined up to play Robert “Mr. Softee” Pronge, the “mentor assassin” to Kuklinski (Michael Shannon); Ray Liotta and Maggie Gyllenhaal were also set to star in the picture, by director Ariel Vroman. However, with Franco gone, “it looks like this project might fall apart,” a source told the site.

Details of Franco’s exit have not been revealed, although the same source blames “key contractual issues that didn’t involve financial terms.” The rest of the cast sounds too interesting to waste, so I’m hoping the movie can still come together out even without Franco’s involvement. If not, well, there’s always The Ice Man, the competing project starring Mickey Rourke. [Cinema Blend]

After the jump, Franco’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes co-star Tom Felton gets to play a good guy for once, and Ruben Fleischer is still adding people to the cast of Gangster Squad.

The theme of this Casting Bits seems to be “rising stars,” as All My Children‘s Ambyr Childers stakes out a spot in an all-star cast, War Horse star Jeremy Irvine leads a movie starring Britain’s finest, and Thor actress Jaimie Alexander signs on to co-star with the Governator himself. Read more after the jump.

Briefly: Here’s one more reason to be excited about Ruben Fleischer‘s upcoming ’40s-set LA ‘cops vs. mobsters’ story Gangster Squad. Nick Nolte is taking a role in the film; he’ll be Bill Parker, “the new chief of police in Los Angeles,” and a Chief who isn’t in the pocket of big-time LA gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn). The character is a WWII vet and the guy who gives the gangster squad its mandate to bust Cohen and other organized crime goons.

Nolte joins a cast that also includes Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Michael Peña, Mirielle Enos, Giovanni Ribisi, Holt McCallany, Robert Patrick, Frank Grillo and Sullivan Stapleton. I don’t know exactly what has Nick Nolte showing up all over the place lately, but I love it. He’s in the David Milch/Michael Mann HBO show Luck, as well as the upcoming films Warrior (pictured above), Parker and The Company You Keep. [Deadline]

Here’s a massive post-weekend catchup casting roundup, with a headlining turn from Jean-Claude van Damme. How can you resist the Muscles From Brussels? Answer: you can’t. Just give in to his suave, over-confident appeal. After the break you’ll find details about:

JCVD taking part in a sci-fi film called UFO,

Danny Glover joining the cast of a different sci-fi thriller, Mentryville,

Here’s a lovers and spouses collection of casting news, leading off with a nice change of pace report of an actor being cast as the ‘love interest’ for a major actress, rather than the other way around. After the break you’ll find:

Matt Dillon will woo Anette Bening in Imogene,

The Killing actress Mireille Enos joins Gangster Squad,

Stephanie Szostak cozies up to Ryan Reynolds in RIPD,

and some of the Jersey Shore knuckleheads appear with famous fictional whackos The Three Stooges.

The summer of 2011 is coming to a close and the final big studio comedy coming our way is 30 Minutes or Less, director Ruben Fleischer‘s post Zombieland/pre-Gangster Squad comedy starring Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride and Nick Swardson. In the film, which is loosely based on a true story, a pizza delivery boy (Eisenberg) has a bomb strapped to him by two thugs (McBride and Swardson) and is forced to rob a bank. A simple premise that, when you watch this new, restricted footage reel, is obviously prime for a ton of jokes, most of which have to do with sexual gratification.

Watch the video after the jump. The footage is tame but the language is decidedly NSFW, so get those headphones out. Read More »

Glee star Darren Criss has landed a part in Imogene, a dark comedy by American Splendor directors Shari Springer Bergman and Robert Pulcini. The Michelle Morgan-penned script revolves around a New York playwright (Kristen Wiig) who fakes a suicide in order to get her ex-boyfriend’s attention. Instead of winning him back, however, she winds up forced to move in with her gambling-addicted “tacky Jersey Shore mother” (Annette Bening).

Criss will play “a younger love interest” who catches the eye of Wiig’s character, but let’s be real — the really intriguing bit of info here is the fact that Bening will be, as Vulture put it, “channel[ing] Snooki” to play “the mother who’s a little inappropriate all the time.” Shooting for the project will begin in New York City this summer. [ThePlaylist]

After the jump, Frank Grillo picks up two new roles on either side of the law, and Patricia Clarkson gets ready to scare the living daylights out of Ron Fucking Swanson.

Ruben Fleischer has assembled a fantastic cast for his third major studio feature, Gangster Squad, but recently he lost one key player. Bryan Cranston, originally cast as Texan cop Max Kennard, transplanted to LA and roped into the mob-busting gangster squad, had to drop out in order to do Ben Affleck’s film Argo. So we still win, as we’ll see Mr. Cranston in what might be a solid film.

But that left the Max Kennard role open, and now Robert Patrick is stepping in. Can I get a .GIF photoshop job of the T-1000 morphing from metal Bryan Cranston into Robert Patrick? Please? Read More »